Fred & Rose

by Howard Sounes

  He joined the Navy as a radio operator, and was sent to the Philippines. While he was away, Daisy divided her time between his parents in Northam and her own family in Essex. When the war ended in 1945, Bill volunteered to stay on; he was proficient at his job and thrived on the discipline, becoming something of a martinet.

  Their third daughter, Glenys, was born in 1950, and the Letts were granted a council property in Northam at 57 Morwenna Park Road. The house was a newly-built three-bedroom end-of-terrace, on a small estate laid out between the old village square and the Northam Burrows. Built on a slight incline, there are views of the estuary and the Bristol Channel, although much of the time the sea is obscured by drizzling rain.

  Bill remained in the Navy for the next few years, making infrequent visits home to Morwenna Park Road on leave, always immaculately turned out in his radio operator’s uniform. When he was home, Daisy was struck by his Victorian ways. He demanded that the house be perfectly clean, and became angry if anything were out of place. When Daisy and Bill quarrelled, as they increasingly did, he accused her of being against him and worked himself into a rage. Daisy began to wonder what sort of life was in store for her.

  He was reserved with the neighbours, even with his school friend Ronnie Lloyd, who now lived next door. Bill also discouraged Daisy from becoming familiar with the women on the estate, but Daisy took these oddities in her stride. She was so used to being ordered about by her father that she allowed her husband to make the decisions, no matter how unfair. Ronnie Lloyd and his wife Elsie were struck by Daisy’s extreme timidity, and noticed she would only speak when spoken to. When Elsie tried to strike up conversation while the women hung out their washing in the adjoining back gardens, Daisy would address her neighbour formally by her surname, never relaxing enough to make conversation.

  Bill’s years in the Navy had been a happy time, but he could not raise a family being away from home so much, so when Daisy became pregnant with their fourth child, Bill returned home to Northam to settle down. He soon came to regret the decision bitterly, and never tired of telling his wife that he wished he had stayed in the services. The main cause of his unhappiness was the scarcity of work in Devon, and the poor wages for what little employment there was.

  Bill worked for a while for Bernard Smith in Barnstaple, repairing television sets. The job came with a van, and Ronnie Lloyd said that it gave him a slightly above-average status in the village because television was so new. Unfortunately, Bill had little patience and invariably found a way of falling out with most people he knew. He did not stay a TV repairman for long.

  When he did find employment, it was often casual work on the promise of payment when the summer season started. The money did not always materialise, and sometimes there were no jobs at all. One year Bill and Ronnie Lloyd tried to sell snacks to the few tourists who ventured on to Northam Burrows. ‘Work was short and we would do anything,’ says Ronnie. Daisy and Elsie Lloyd cut the sandwiches and Bill spent several dispiriting days trudging back and forth along the sandy paths by the sea looking for customers.

  No matter how short money became, Daisy took a pride in turning her three daughters out smartly. She patched and mended old clothes to make do for the new ones they could not afford. They might be poor and hungry, but she would never let it show. The memory of her well-dressed children still makes Daisy proud: ‘Neighbours complimented me on how smart they looked,’ she says.

  The neighbours also noticed that the children were set to work the minute they returned home from the village school. One might do the ironing, another would be told to look after whoever was the baby at the time. They were even sent out for Mrs Letts’ shopping, and housewives found themselves standing beside the earnest-looking Letts girls in the village shop.

  If Bill Letts were home, the house had to be made spotless. When he came in, he would run his finger across the furniture – and if he found dust, the house would have to be cleaned again.

  The children were not allowed to play outside the house; instead, Daisy led her daughters on a long walk each morning. Sometimes they would march across the blustery Burrows down to the sea, where they could search for crabs in the rock pools. Other days they walked for miles through the peaceful country lanes, glad to be away from the oppressive company of their father. ‘I wouldn’t say that they had a natural childhood,’ says former neighbour Elsie Lloyd.

  It was noticed that the children had considerable respect for Bill’s word. He never played with the children or gave them any of his time – but if he called to one of his daughters to do a chore, the child would go running without a moment’s hesitation.

  Arguments between Daisy and Bill were frequent, and became violent. Bill had started to hit Daisy during his tantrums, and she was often seen around the village with black eyes. One day a terrible scene unfolded outside the Letts home. The house was set down below street level, with a flight of five concrete steps from the gate to the garden path. Bill pulled his screaming wife down the steps by her hair and then slapped her. Neighbours were so shocked that they called the police. Daisy thought these outbursts had something to do with the phases of the moon; the abuse soon got to the point when she would tell herself that, if the moon were full, she would have to be careful.

  The regime at home was terrifying; one of absolute obedience. Apart from their chores around the house, the children had to be perfectly behaved. They sat silently at dinner, waiting for their father to start eating, and watched him warily for any change in his mood. Any little thing would spark a row that could last for several days. The children looked up at their mother with earnest, worried faces as she implored them not to aggravate their father or get in his way.

  Despite these lessons in survival, Bill Letts still found reasons to beat his children, hitting them across the face and thrashing them with the copper stick from the boiler. He had come to resemble the actor Donald Pleasance in looks, and was a truly frightening figure when angry. His eyes blazed, his face a picture of malevolence. He threw one of the girls down the stairs and banged another child’s head against a brick wall. When Daisy protested, she too was beaten, as the children wailed for it to stop. Mad with his anger, Bill shouted that she was against him as well, and tossed boiling water over her. The sound of sobbing could be heard long after the screaming died down.

  Looking back at those days, Daisy says sadly, ‘He was a heller to live with. We lived under terror for years.’ She was so ashamed, and confused, by her husband’s extraordinary behaviour that she told nobody, not even her family, of the misery she lived with. ‘We literally suffered hell behind locked doors,’ she says. When some of the neighbours did challenge Bill about the way he treated his family, it only reinforced his belief that everybody was against him – and, when the front door to Number 57 was closed, he beat his family all the more. Daisy believes her husband took a perverse pleasure in hurting them. ‘He was anything but normal,’ she says. ‘He was a tyrant to live with. I would say he was sadistic because he seemed to enjoy making you unhappy.’

  What she did not know was that Bill was hiding a secret from her, a secret she would only discover three decades later when she read his medical records after his death.

  Bill was a diagnosed schizophrenic, suffering severe psychotic experiences. He had suffered with the illness from a very early age, but had never told his family and does not appear to have received treatment. Some days Bill was happy, planning surprises for Daisy’s birthday or their anniversary; other days he walked in the front door spoiling for a fight. ‘He was definitely two different people,’ Daisy says; she compared his behaviour with that of Stevenson’s character Dr Jekyll. Also, like many schizophrenics, Bill could be aggressive and had an irrational suspicion that people were plotting against him.

  In 1952 Daisy gave birth to her fourth child, Andrew, the first of three sons. Daisy then entered into a long period of severe post-natal depression; at least, that is what she thought it was at first. But feelings of anxiety a
nd an inability to cope deepened and lasted into 1953, when she suffered a severe nervous breakdown. Strangely, Bill was sympathetic to Daisy’s depression, perhaps due to the secret knowledge he had of his own mental imbalance. Daisy’s doctor listened to her problems, and decided she should see an expert in mental health. He referred her to a hospital in Bideford, where she became an out-patient of the psychiatric unit. A psychiatrist there suggested to Daisy that her depression was so serious it might benefit from Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT). Daisy said she would try anything, and prepared to receive what was known as the ‘electric hammer’.

  Daisy Letts received her first ECT treatments in a small, country hospital by the sea in 1953. She was given a muscle-relaxing drug and then strapped down like some lunatic in Bedlam. Clumsy electrodes were attached to her scalp and she was given a piece of rubber to bite on. When these preparations were complete, the power was switched on and an electrical current crackled through her brain. Daisy remembers biting on the rubber gag – and then blackness. When the power was turned on, she says, ‘You didn’t know no more.’

  ECT is a mysterious form of medical treatment, the side effects of which can include confusion and memory loss. It is as controversial now as it was in the 1950s. The theory is that electricity passed through the brain redresses the balance of chemicals which govern mood. But scientists do not know exactly why it works, and some doctors believe it does more harm than good. It is an indication of how controversial ECT still is that the treatment is banned completely in the state of California.

  After two treatments Daisy again saw a psychiatrist, who evaluated her progress and decided she was a more serious case than had at first been suspected. More treatment would be needed. Daisy agreed, as nothing could be worse than the pain she already suffered at home, and went on to have a course of six treatments. During this time she continued to have a sporadic sex life with Bill, and became pregnant for the fifth time. The treatment finally ended, leaving her feeling battered and far from well, but there was no opportunity for recuperation. In the autumn of 1953, shortly after her last session, Daisy registered at the Highfield Maternity Home in Northam to have her fifth child, the daughter who would later become infamous as Rose West.

  Rose was conceived from the union of two mentally ill people. Her father was a violent schizophrenic; her mother a depressive recovering from a severe nervous breakdown. The children of schizophrenics have a 1-in-10 chance of becoming schizophrenic themselves, and the children of depressives are also far more likely than normal to suffer from mental illness. The child born to Daisy and Bill Letts at the Highfield Maternity Home that autumn had both these genetic dice loaded against her. What is more, she had grown in the womb while her mother’s brain was slammed by the ‘electric hammer’ of ECT. Finally, the home that awaited Rose was one of almost Dickensian poverty and cruelty. A more troubled start in life is hard to imagine.

  Rosemary Pauline Letts was born on the twenty-ninth day of November 1953. In the outside world, the young Queen Elizabeth II was touring the Commonwealth following her June coronation. Daisy could have no idea of the horrors that were to follow with this, her fourth and last baby girl. She held Rosemary – as the family would always call her – and loved the child as she had the others. Rosemary was a beautiful baby who ‘never cried and was as good as gold’. Over forty years later, Daisy Letts smiles sadly at the memory.

  Soon after bringing the baby home to 57 Morwenna Park Road it was clear that Rose was different to other children. She developed a habit of rocking herself in her cot; if she was put in a pram without the break on, she rocked so violently that the pram crept across the room. As she became a little older, Rose only rocked her head, but she did this for hours on end. It was one of the first indications that, in the family’s words, she was ‘a bit slow’. If a child with such a habit were taken to a doctor now, there would be great concern, as it is an early indication of learning difficulties. As Rose grew from a baby to a toddler to a little girl, she would swing her head for hours until she seemed to have hypnotised herself into a state of semi-consciousness. When Daisy called for her, Rose did not hear, and Rose’s sister, Glenys, who had to share a room with Rose at one stage, complained that the incessant rocking kept her awake at night.

  Rose was also marked out by her striking attractiveness. In the local phraseology of Northam she was described by mothers as a ‘lovely young maid’. She had large brown eyes, olive skin and glossy brown hair. But there was a vacancy in those big, doll-like eyes that made the neighbours wonder. She would stand at the gate of 57 Morwenna Park Road and gaze at the world, almost as if she were not a part of it.

  Rita New, who lived nearby on the estate, says it was clear that Rose was not like other children.

  ‘It’s the way her used to look; she used to stare a lot. I know her was different.’

  4

  DOZY ROSIE

  Rose was such an unintelligent child that her older siblings nicknamed her ‘Dozy Rosie’. Her elder brother Andrew says she was left out of their children’s games because she was ‘as thick as two planks’. As a result, Rose spent a great deal of time on her own during the first few years of her life, often amusing herself with her six pet hamsters. Then, in 1957, when Rosemary was four, Daisy gave birth to her second son, Graham. Rose played delightedly with her baby brother as if he were a doll, screeching with pleasure when she was allowed to help bathe him. It was with Graham, and other younger children, that she continued to play as she grew older, never being at ease with boys and girls of her own age; her mother says she was always ‘babyish’.

  Her eldest sisters, Patricia and Joyce, left home around the time that Rose started school, exhausted by their father’s tyrannical behaviour. Because of the age gap, they never came to know Rose well.

  It was a plump girl, with ponytails dancing in the air, who ran along the road from 57 Morwenna Park to Northam Village School each morning. Rose performed poorly at lessons: elementary mathematics, reading and writing were all a struggle. She stared uncomprehendingly at the blackboard, and was quite unable to master the spelling of even the simplest words. She did not join in with other children in the playground at break, and went straight home when school was finished, just as neat and tidy as when she had left that morning. Often she would have a number of smaller children filing behind her, and they would sit on the grass in front of the house having make-believe tea.

  At home Rosemary was a ‘cry-baby’. The other Letts children were used to working around the house. They were expected to clean it, often before going to school, and were also responsible for keeping up the garden. Fear of their father meant that they did not even consider skipping chores; the consequences were too awful. But Rose was different. When she was given a task, she whined until one of the others did it for her. The most surprising aspect of this laziness was that her father did not mind it – he considered Rose to be ‘dense’ or ‘naïve’ and thought her behaviour was funny. She became his favourite, and was the only child to escape physical punishment.

  Dinner at Morwenna Park Road was eaten in silence, and then the children cleared away. Any misbehaviour was punished with a severe beating, yet Bill would tolerate Rose playing with her food while she stared vacantly around the table. Daisy says that Bill ‘always saw the funny side of her’.

  With the exception of his engagingly ‘stupid’ daughter, Bill found fault in everything. He could not find and keep a good job, and men in the village, even a member of Daisy’s family, had started questioning him about the way he disciplined the children. When he passed down the village streets, children hissed ‘schizo’, little knowing how close to the truth they were. Daisy also presented Bill with another mouth to feed: their third son, Gordon, was born in 1960.

  There was gossip in the village that Bill had an unhealthy interest in children. The rumour became particularly persistent during one of his spells of unemployment when, despite his lack of patience with children, Bill decided to start a rock ‘
n’ roll youth club for the local teenagers. It was held in a room behind the Kingsley Arms public house, overlooking Northam’s graveyard. There was a tape player and some early Bill Haley and Elvis Presley music, although the few teenagers who attended found Bill’s dour demeanour a deadening influence and the club soon closed. There was never any proven impropriety – and Ronnie Lloyd, who ran the club with him, was above suspicion – but it was said that Bill Letts had been overly attentive to certain young girls.

  For all these reasons Bill was finding it difficult to continue living in Northam by the early 1960s. Supporting his family was a constant and losing battle; name-calling and innuendo suggesting he was a pervert represented the final straw. The Letts packed up their belongings and moved out of Morwenna Park Road.

  They travelled south to the seaport of Plymouth, where they rented lodgings from a family named Scobling, taking the top floor of a large terrace house in Benbow Street in the Stoke area of the city. Bill found a poorly-paid civilian job at the nearby Devonport dockyards, and this brought him into contact with a pernicious asbestos-like material which would later cause him to develop a lung infection. Despite the money he earned from this job, the family were still poor and Daisy felt that she was on the verge of a second nervous breakdown. She became obsessed with the cleanliness of the flat. The Letts had to use an outside toilet and the neighbours watched in astonishment as Daisy bleached it out up to four times every day.